Circus Sarasota rebranding itself for clarity

In a move aimed at better conveying its multi-faceted mission, Circus Sarasota is adopting a new name, a new website and a new image.

At a barbecue party Saturday night for about 300 supporters at its headquarters on Bahia Vista Street, the 17-year-old nonprofit organization announced its rebranding as The Circus Arts Conservatory. The name is an “umbrella” moniker that will embrace Circus Sarasota, Sailor Circus and several education and humor therapy programs — the existing performance, training and outreach branches of the organization, respectively.

“We've reached the place in our growth where we have to create an identity that encompasses all of what we do,” said Pedro Reis, who co-founded the organization with his wife, aeralist Dolly Jacobs. “We have a title now that truly and totally defines our role in connection with the circus arts.”

The new title is visually expressed in a modernized logo, featuring the letters “C” and “A” in red and gold, followed by the words “Performance. Training. Outreach. Legacy.” An updated website (www.circussarasota.org or www.circusarts.org), which went up Friday, also has a cleaner, more upscale look.

Jennifer Mitchell, who took over as managing director in June, said the rebranding cost approximately $30,000. The organization has a $2.8 million annual budget.

The word “conservatory” was selected because its varied definitions — as a school giving instruction in the arts, an incubator for growth, and a place where things are preserved and conserved — seemed to fit with the organization's multiple missions, Reis said.

“The more I studied it, the more it seemed to be exactly what we are doing — growth, training, education and preservation,” he added.

The rebranding was precipitated 2 1/2years ago, when Circus Sarasota inherited Sailor Circus and its 2.2-acre campus at 2075 Bahia Vista St. from the Police Athletic League (PAL), which had previously overseen the 64-year-old circus arts program for children from fourth to 12th grade.

In melding the two nonprofits, it became clear that the public was confused about the unified organization's activities and intentions, Mitchell said.

Focus groups revealed that many people assumed Circus Sarasota was a for-profit entertainment provider and were unaware of its long-standing outreach programs in schools and nursing homes; meanwhile, Sailor Circus had a seperate identity as an amateur after-school training program.

“When people hear the word circus, they think of a show,” said Mitchell. “The brand needed most to address that we do more than just what you see in the ring.”

The organization's previous motto — “Circus Sarasota — more than a circus” — was vague, Mitchell said, and had the potential to be construed in a pejorative sense.

“I think we recognize that the word circus can lend itself to being presented as cheesy, corny or elementary,” she added. “This brand is designed so that our messaging presents circus arts at the highest possible level.”

In a sense, the new brand returns to the original vision Reis and Jacobs had when they incorporated in 1997 as the National Circus School of Performing Arts. They planned to create a circus arts school to train professionals.

But a demand to bring live circus back to Sarasota prompted a move toward producing performances, Reis said, and the Circus Sarasota label.

“It was a chicken-and-egg scenario and which should come first?” he recalled. “So our belief became, if we build it, they will come.”

The organization has had many ups and downs — save for a rescue by a deep-pocketed patron, it would have folded in 2002 — but Reis and Jacobs retained the dream of creating a professional school. Among their long-term goals is a plan to partner with a local college to offer a certified circus arts degree program, the first in the nation.

The priority is an estimated $2 million renovation of the Sailor Circus arena, which needs an air conditioning system and new flooring, seats, lighting and bathrooms.

Other plans include expansion of its presentations. In addition to Circus Sarasota productions, this year it will bring in a boutique circus from Canada and a nontraditional Las Vegas show; next year, it plans to showcase a Chinese couple who have earned fame on youtube with an act where the woman, a dancer, balances on pointe atop her partner's head.

In 2016 or 2017, the organization also hopes to host an International Youth Circus Festival, the first ever to take place in the U.S.

Mitchell acknowledged that the rebranding may initially cause some confusion and that it may take as many as two years before there is uniform understanding of the organization's many working parts.

“Obviously, we're cognizant of the challenge that Circus Sarasota and Sailor Circus already have well-established identities,” she said. “That's why we're taking them into the fold. They will continue to exist as they always have; this is really not a drastic change.”

Reis said the onus rests with the organization to convey the new image through its messaging.

“That's up to us,” he said. “We want everyone to know we are not changing ourselves, we are elevating ourselves. We're elevating circus to a higher level than the old side show.”